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Living Maple Leaf an international hit

Winnipeg’s Living Maple Leaf at the iconic Portage and Main intersection on Canada Day are drawing international attention.

Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, who organized the event, said photos of the event have had over 5,000 shares on the BIZ’s Facebook page, reportedly having a reach of 600,000 people.

Downtown Winnipeg BIZ has been running the event since 2011, but this is the first time it has received wide-spread acclaim.

“We’ve had great local interest, but not international interest,” Downtown BIZ spokesperson Tineke de Jong said, noting she had received a call from Germany earlier in the day.

De Jong believes the timing was perfect for the event to get so much attention.

“I think with the Canada 150 celebration, it was just a really beautiful way to celebrate our country,” de Jong said. “And people around the world are really relating to it.”

The video of the event is drawing attention too.

“People are loving the time lapse video of it, because it’s just fun to see how it all comes together,” she said. “I think people are just excited to celebrate Canada-wide, and see all the diversities of the different celebrations and this one has just struck a chord with people.”

Winnipeg moved away from the living Canada flag they had done in previous years, costing them their title of largest living Canadian flag. But as one of the first cities to move to a living maple leaf, the city now holds the record there.

The Living Maple Leaf was made up of 3,600 people and took half an hour to get everybody into position. The event may have started at 8 a.m., but people started showing up far earlier than that to be in the Living Maple Leaf.

“I was there at 5:45 a.m., and we had our first five people in line before I got there,” de Jong said. “We had 2,500 of the special event T-shirts to give away. And I had heard from our team that in past years people were really passionate about these shirts and show up early for them.”

De Jong says Winnipeggers should be proud of the event.

“It just shows the passion of Winnipeggers,” de Jong said. “It’s cool to celebrate Canada Day and be part of an event. And holding it at Portage and Main is important because it’s our iconic Winnipeg intersection, but also kind of the center of Canada as well.”